British League Premiership - 3rd Round
Competing in the third round of the BAL Premiership at Birmingham’s Alexender Stadium on Saturday, Woodford’s men’s team finished 5th in a very tight competition, which now leaves them in 3rd place overall in the League. Birchfield in their home fixture and who had started as League leaders tied as winners with Shaftesbury who had been struggling in the prior two fixtures, each scoring 335 points. Sheffield were 3rd with 289.5, Liverpool 284, Woodford 272, Newham 266, Sale 262.5, and Windsor 140. The League standings now see Birchfield top with 22.5 points, Sheffield 18, Woodford 17, Shaftesbury 15.5, Newham 14, Liverpool 12, Sale 5 and Windsor 4, and that means ahead of the final fixture at Copthall on August 6th Sale and Windsor are already relegated. Woodford were not quite as strong as in the previous two fixtures, but that was possibly true of some other teams, but nevertheless produced a solid all round team performance, where the base was built in the field events, and the best scoring event was a winning double in the triple jump from Tosin Oke and Thalosang Tshireletso.
The last weekend competing in Durban South Africa at the African Championships, Tosin Oke, previously a European Junior Triple Jump Champion for GB & NI, but who now competes for Nigeria, had won those African Championships with a season’s best of 17.13m an Olympic Games qualifying mark, which should see him going to Rio hoping to improve on his 7th place from London 2012. Here at Birmingham Tosin used a 9 stride short approach and recorded 15.28m (+0.8) which was enough to claim the “A” string win, as Thalosang Tshireletso, also using a short approach won the “B” with 14.85m (+0.1). Another Woodford athlete who had competed in Durban, Olu Olamigoke competed as a guest and recorded 15.78m (+1.0). Earlier in the long jump Tosin had also earned good “B” string points where he placed 3rd with 6.88m (0.0), as Ezekiel Ewulo won the “A” with 7.47m (+1.2). In the high jump which was a good standard Robert Wolski cleared a season’s best of 2.10m but that only placed him 5th, with Jack Lochans, struggling to recover from a recent injury managed 1.80m for 6th in the “B”. In the Pole Vault Dan Gardner struggled a little having cleared a safe opening height 2.60m, but failed to clear anything higher when he came back into the competition. That placed Dan 7th in the “A” and Chris Awde in clearing 2.20m was also 7th in the “B”. The throws as usual brought decent points, the best one of those was the shot where Youcef Zatat’s 17.27m placed 3rd in the “A” with Anthony Oshodi winning the “B” with 16.45m. The hammer saw Andy Frost place 3rd with 63.14m and Harry Clarke, also 3rd in the “B” with 52.01m. The javelin saw another solid performance from James Bongart with 55.25m but in a good standard competition this was only good enough for 8th in the “A” as Simon Bennett placed 3rd in the “B” with 52.07m.
On the track, the middle distance events were pretty solid for Woodford, as in the “A” 800 Jordan Donnelly placed a very close 4th with 1m53.76 secs, as just 0.6 secs covered the first 5, and in the “B” Paul Scanlan was also a good 4th with 1m55.52 secs. The 1500m was a tactical race that wound up over the final 600m, and James Stockings ran well to finish 4th in 4m00.11 secs, and just behind was Tom Phillips who placed who 2nd in the ”B” with 4m00.15 secs. Matt Gunby had his first track outing of the summer and after going with the early 5000m pace found the latter few laps tough, but nevertheless was still 5th in the “A” with 15m05.49 secs and Bradley Wattleworth was 3rd in the “B” with 15m28.60 secs. In the 3000m s/ch Tom Beedell finished strongly to just catch a faster starting Tomaz Plibersek, as he placed 6th in the “A” with 9m49.55 sec, with Tomaz 4th in the “B” with 9m 52.07 secs. Over 400mH and in the absence of Jack Lawrie, Ewan Dyer stepped up to the “A” string, and in a good quality race placed 5th with 52.84 secs, Ryan McKinlay stepped into the “B” event and his 60.50 secs managed to gain 4th pace points. Missing a 2nd 110m Hurdler, Ryan also compete din that “B” event and placed 7th with 19.99 secs. In the “A” it was pleasing to see debutant John McCall in action, and in his first competitive race for some time he placed a good 3rd in the “A” string with 14.60 secs.
Woodford’s sprinters didn’t gain the points that usually come the way of those events, but with a number of the top athletes missing for various reasons, and notably injury those that stepped in did so gamely. At very short notice, and having just ran in the non-scoring 100m where he recorded 11.22 secs, Justin Duru took on the “A” string as Jermaine Hamilton had to step down suffering from a severe migraine attack, Justin placed 8th with 11.28 secs, and in the “B”, junior Shayne Dewar was 7th with 11.16 secs. With Jermaine still unavailable Justin also had to undertake the 200m where he was 8th in the “B” with 22.70 secs, and Shayne was 7th in the “A” with 22.45 secs. Over 400m Dan Rowden already selected over 800m for the World Junior Championships, started a little tentatively but finished very strongly and although 8th with 48.66 secs just 0.17 secs covered 4th to 8th places. Jordan Donnely stepped in to cover the “B” event and was 8th with 52.17 secs.
The 4x100m team of Justin Duru, John McCall, Jermaine Hamilton and Ewan Dyer produced a good if unlikely 3rd place with 42.51 secs, and the 4x400m team of Ewan Dyer 50.79 secs, Ryan McKinlay 52.74 secs, Dan Rowden 48. 74 secs and Jordan Donnelly 51.29 secs were 7th with 3m23.56 secs.
Team Manger Gladys Bird will be hoping for a strong turnout to finish the BAL season on a high note at Copthall on August 6th.